The Handwriting on the Wall (Vets)

A few years ago, I made an interactive work of public art entitled, "The Handwriting on the Wall." The piece was designed as a very large freestanding monolith...a wall...painted in blackboard paint on all sides. Originally the subject of the work was violence against women...world-wide...and I spent two years compiling research from around the globe on this topic. The research was horrific. In every country on the planet, women are and have been, suffering incredible abuse of their rights as human beings. No country is immune, no race, no income level, no educational level, no religious faith may hold its head up relative to the protection of women. The art work itself involved having the women in the audience transcribe my research data as brief statistics on one side of the wall while inviting them to write their own experience of abuse, physical or emotional, on the other side in a public space. "Handwriting on the Wall" was exhibited in several venues and had one international exhibit, in Buenos Aires in 2007. It was a powerful impacting work for those who saw it. 

I realized recently that "Handwriting" can be repeated and that the "wall" needn't by physically made for it to work. As well, the subject may be varied to involve many sorts of human rights issues. Consequently, I opened a page on my FaceBook site, called "Handwriting on the Wall (Vets)," inviting veterans to write on a virtual wall, messages they would like to give their Commander in Chief, relative to their view of war. The perpective of vets and people who's country was invaded, the civilians in harm's way, are the greatest perspectives of war. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Handwriting-on-the-Wall-Vets/271180473016...

That effort has begun and led me to consider that, as I have been blogging in Port Washington for a couple of years, I could try the same with a blog, and transpose these messages from vets to a Facebook "wall". 

I will be frank...my opinion of war is that it is enormously destructive and profits only those involved in its infrastructure, the manufacturers of weapons, the huge companies that are hired to rebuild what our forces destroy, the military industrial complex, as it is called. Since I am no one, just a voice in the wind, I would like to offer the words of the 34th President of the US, Dwight David Eisenhower, as an opening reflection, and suggest that if anyone knew about the relative efficacy of war, it might be this man. 

Two quotes then, from Eisenhower:

“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.” 

“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

Of course I agree with President and former General Eisenhower. War has settled nothing and the use of force to coerce cooperation is antithetical to every productive manner of advancing ideologies, faiths, or programs for the betterment of human kind. 

In this blog I ask that vets alone, compose as many words as they care to, not addressed to me, but to whomever was their Commander in Chief.... telling him what they think of the war he conducted. I hope that non-vets, will refrain from any messages on this blog, out of respect for those who believed enough in what they thought they were doing to risk their lives for it... I will also not be commenting beyond thanking vets for submitting honest messages to their CIC. I will flag "blog vandals" who regularly try to sabotage my blogs by posting character attacks on me. I am well aware that many perpetual respondents do not like my ideas. This is not about me...

I appreciate all responses from vets in this blog. Feel free to be anonymous or not...as you choose...to add or not... where you served, when you served or any other bio relative to your service. 

Many thanks, 

Brian Carlson